Issue 5 - May 2001

High in the mountains there were hardly any birds; there were some crows, there were deer and an occasional bear.

There is a churning in the world of education. Teachers, parents, administrators and policy-makers are being driven to question anew: ‘What are we doing with our children?’ ‘What values, dispositions and concerns are we creating in them?’ ‘What is the quality of relationships with peers and others that our children are imbibing?’ ‘What will be their relationship with the society and environment they are part of?’ ‘Will future generations be able to find wholesome responses to the many complex challenges of their times?’ These questions are not speculative or academic, but stem from sensitive observation of everyday realities, as much in the classroom as in the society around us.

I wonder what the future holds for us in the Krishnamurti schools.

Consciousness is the primary datum of existence, of human existence, and perhaps of all existence.

The work of the Kindergarten teacher involves many dimensions of understanding.

Working with the intentions of the Krishnamurti schools takes us deep into the question, ‘What is learning?’ We can explore this better when we do not divide or compartmentalize learning into academic and non-academic, and separate this from day-to-day living.

One of the units of my 10th grade English class at Oak Grove School is ‘critical thinking.’

‘Hey! I thought you said you had vertigo!?’

In educating children, apart from developing their physical, intellectual and aesthetic capacities, are we not concerned with a non-verbal movement of the mind, with a heightened quality of attention, of observation and listening?

To a thinking person, it is quite clear that human beings have collectively contributed more problems to the earth than any other species.

Brockwood Park School in England, founded by Krishnamurti in 1969, is an international residential school that brings together around 60 students from around 20 countries, aged between 14 and 20.

Like the first page of a novel, the first scene of a play, or the first chords of a piece of music, the first week of a new school year must communicate a lot.

Introduction In this piece I will discuss an Anthropology module we did at Brockwood, as part of a new class called the ‘Main Lesson’.

Last year Brockwood Park School initiated a new art class to explore the expressions of Western contemporary art, focusing on the phenomenon of ‘Conceptual Art’.

The information revolution is sweeping the world. Computer networks capable of storing, processing and transmitting vast amounts of data are webbing their way into the lives of people the world over.

For me, the central questions raised by the advent of computers in education are: How does the arrival of computers affect the teacher and what implications does this have for his role?

Living and teaching in a school situated in the hub of the IT revolution, the impact of computers on a child’s psyche is not hard to observe.

There has been a great deal of discussion regarding the use of computers and Internet in school education, more specifically in the area of teaching/ learning processes.

Information technology is changing and morphing so dramatically – Gordon Moore’s now-famous law projects the doubling of computer power every 18 months – that its implications for education can hardly be viewed from any fixed point.

Sherlock Holmes, as is well known, was a person who was subject to violent fluctuations of mood.

Images of GeographyGeography – the very name conjures up images of misty mountains, bubbling brooks, rapidly flowing rills, deep gorges, endless undulating plains, and majestic rivers, so slow-flowing that they almost seem indolent, yet with a hidden power that man has sought to harness for aeons.

A few years ago I made a transition from teaching French as a foreign language to adults to making materials for teaching Hindi as a second language to young school goers in South India.

Going back through my diary and taking out excerpts for the Journal has been a rewarding experience for me.

The Kaigal Valley landThe Krishnamurti Foundation India has had in its care about 200 acres of beautiful forest land at Kaigal Valley near the town of Palamner since 1984.

There was a slight movement on the branch above us, well over fifty feet high.

I undertook training in Kindergarten education at the Children’s Garden School in Chennai in 1978.

I am sure all you mathematics teachers out there have had the following experience.

This is a set of six videos on child development, each lasting from one to one and a half hours, anchored by Dr. Joseph Chilton Pearce, a well-known author and psychologist.

It is rarely that one comes across a book about young girls that is not merely a saga of their times, of the pain and struggles in their lives, but also takes a proactive approach to actually doing what the title suggests – Reviving Ophelia.